"The enthusiasm of the party as they watched this wondrous display knew no bounds. Those who were usually loud and boisterous in the exhibition of their feelings, became subdued and simply gazed in silent awe; while the more sober members seemed to lose their natural gravity and manifested their delight in shouts of rapture. For myself, I remember trying to obtain a view of the fountain from all points of the compass at once, and was brought to a realizing sense of the difficulties attending the execution of this desire, by discovering that I was waiting in the torrent of hot water which was now flooding the nearly level surface of the surrounding rock.
"After the grand column of water subsided, vast clouds of steam, were for some time ejected from the throat of the geyser, and also from a small rent close beside the main orifice.
"During the following day we watched this crater with increasing vigilance in the hope of witnessing another of its stupendous exhibitions. The photographer kept his camera levelled upon the spot all day, and careful arrangements for triangulating the height of the column were also made. But though numerous indications of another eruption were observed at intervals by the rising of the water with violent ebullitions, no explosion occurred till about ten o'clock at night, when the grand performance was repeated. The spectacle by moonlight was truly sublime, but less satisfactory than in the day, since it was more difficult to distinguish between the column of water and the masses of vapor escaping with it. The interval between its eruptions was approximately determined as about twenty-nine hours; we therefore reasoned that it would play again at three o'clock the following night, and at eight on the succeeding morning. But we were doomed to disappointment; the eruption persisted in taking-place before daylight on the three succeeding nights, thus preventing the observations we so much desired to make."
Two hundred yards below the Giant is the Grotto so named from the curious irregularity of its inclosing walls. It has an exceedingly intricate formation, with fantastic arches, pillars, and turreted sides, and discharges several times a day. Several of the first explorers crawled through the sinuous apertures when all was quiet. It seemed as harmless as curious then, but their opinion was changed slightly when they saw it an hour after throwing a column of water six feet in diameter to the height of sixty feet. Near it are several vents in which the water boils constantly to the height of six feet, large streams running down the banks into the river.